The Tool's Edge
by ParadoxPortal
Summary: It was Lorne's first frontline battle against the Luskans. And his last. And worse, his and his comrades' fates lie in Torio Claven's hands, not even a year into her duties as Luskan's new Ambassador. Language, violence, & torture undertones. Pre NWN2 OC.
1. Casualties

_**A/N**__: Alright, I have no idea where this came from. I've never been remotely interested in Lorne's past but this entire chapter possessed me and just wouldn't let go until I was finished. Subsequent chapters are probably inevitable. Oh, and yes, the bold and all-caps title is intentional. Lorne's a big dude, he deserves equally large titles. )_

**CASUALTIES**

"On your knees, Neverwinter scum."

He stood firm, grimacing at the added weight on his shattered right leg. His ragged breath hitched in his chest, maybe from a few broken ribs; he would _not_nurse his wounds in front of this Luskan bitch.

The woman drew a long sigh. Then, with a venomous hiss, her stiletto-heeled boot connected with his injured leg, and the pain drove him roaring to his knees.

"Much better." She purred. "That's the problem with you filth. Never willing to give up the ghost even in the face of failure. Not very smart." Her eyes raked the battered remnants of the pathetic 'squad', their dozen or so faces caked with dried blood and dirt. "And you _have_ failed. Neverwinter _will_ burn. Burn by the very _holy woman _that once healed your people." She sneered. "How ironic."

He mustered enough strength to spit at her feet. His mouth was dry and dusty. He glared defiantly up into her petulant face.

"Answer me something, _ambassador_." His voice rumbled. "How long since they bought you? Did they curry your loyalty through love of country?" His bloodied mouth rose at one corner. "Or through _fear_?

She was young for an ambassador. Inexperienced. Both made her quick to anger. Rage contorted her features. "SILENCE!" She stepped backward, lips curled. "Miblir."

A lithe man in black leathers—black as pitch and all the shadows even grown men feared—glided forward to stand beside her. "Yes, Ambassador?"

She sniffed impatiently, gazing down her nose and through thick lashes at the fallen man. "Finish him."

The remaining soldiers of the defeated Neverwinter squad struggled and protested against their bindings. It availed them nothing. A glint of cold steel silenced the man they had followed, to whatever end. The man whom had kept them alive and breathing.

His throat poured crimson on the Luskan soil as he died. The Neverwinter pride in him balked at this fate, but it slowly ebbed away into a forgotten ache.

The last thing his dimming eyes beheld was sky. Sky and a blood-red sun.

* * *

Lorne's sergeant had been a good man. He didn't take any guff or dissent and gods help you if you questioned his judgment. But damn it, he'd had convictions. Principles even. 

The sergeant had implored, no _demanded_ really, that the Captain give Lorne a shot at the Luskan bastards. Lorne was a mountain of a man; strong, determined, fearsome. A man like Lorne was wasted in the reserves, and did Neverwinter little good in sitting around and waiting for a chance to bloody his knuckles a bit.

It was on account of this man, this man whose body was already cooling in death, that Lorne had been given the opportunity to experience the_real_ war. No border control or gate defense or guard duty. Just two armies vying to murder one another and leave as much mess behind as possible.

Lorne had muttered a 'thanks' to the sergeant earlier that day. The frontlines made for a welcome change.

Now he hated him for it.

"The fool." The young ambassador managed to unclench her fists. She still appeared shaken from the sergeant's last words. She ran her fingers through her dark, shoulder-length mane to calm herself. "No, no, Miblir. Don't stow that pretty dagger just yet. From the look of this bunch, there won't be many survivors."

Lorne searched the faces of the men nearest him. All young bucks with few hopes in this war other than simple comforts and living another day. Some he called friends. Others earned his scorn. But all were brothers now, in this moment. Brothers in their inevitable fate.

The one called Miblir leered. "Careful. Lest you displease Garius again. I see he can be quite..." He trailed a grimy thumb down one of her shoulders, where an angry, barely healed gash marred the pale flesh. "...ah, _brutal_."

Her nails gripped like talons as she thrust his hand from her. "That was different, you swine." Her voice quieted. "That was my own error." The cold, predatory sheen returned to her leaden eyes. "Do not touch me again, Miblir. Master Garius has been a most generous tutor. I think you'll find that I, too, can be _brutal_." Those talons crackled in frenzied energy.

Miblir held up his hands, only placating her of course; the leer remained.

The ambassador commanded Miblir and his fellow assassins to maneuver the Neverwinter soldiers into an interrogation line. Lorne was pleased to find that it took the entire squad, six men and Miblir himself, to subdue and wrestle him into place.

He took in the straight-shot profiles of his comrades. An interrogation line? A line of cows bound for the slaughterhouse fit better.

She examined them each in turn, running an appraising eye over their bodies as if examining stallions. She checked their height, estimated their weight, kicked them in the gut to see if they could take it, questioned them on seemingly random topics, and held an individual though brief conversation with each.

Lorne paid little heed to any of it. The words merged into one long ramble that he neither cared nor wanted to hear. He focused on the barren ground between his knees. Pity he wouldn't live for a rescue party.

But even that notion turned numb in his rapidly wavering mind, all fuzzy indifference. Even his heart, earlier charged and thrumming in rage, palpitated into…nothing. He couldn't even feel it anymore. He snapped his aching head skyward, all at once certain that the Luskan harpy had killed him during his thoughts and sent him to whatever plane awaited.

His eyes were met with her silhouette framed against the darkening sky.

She arched a brow approvingly as she surveyed him. "And we have the runt of the litter, I see." She drawled. A slender hand reached out to grab hold of his powerful jaw, but he gnashed his teeth at her fingers. She drew back. A deep but warning laugh rose in her throat.

Lorne flexed against the coils around his wrists and ankles, willing his muscles to bulge and snap the tethers. They just dug stinging furrows into his skin. If they gave way, he would tear this..._creature_ and all her sniveling minions until not even their precious Hosttower could scry their remains.

"Release me." He ordered.

She responded by ramming her foot into his abdomen. He grunted, and a few white sparkles floated in his vision, but that was all.

He roared in bestial laughter. "That dainty toe of yours will not break me, Torio Claven."

The squad of assassins shifted in disquiet.

"My, aren't we the brazen wretch?" Torio narrowed her eyes; but her curiosity had piqued and she could not mask that. Her voice dropped to an almost cautious whisper. "Only Master Garius and insolent morons call me by name. And while you _are_ insolent, you don't strike me as a moron." A gleam to the eye and a sneer. "Yet."

Lorne strained against the ropes again, the pain it caused only stoking his anger. "Release me." He said again.

"Tell me, greycloak." Torio placed a hand on her hip, tone strong and unyielding. "What do they call you?" She waved the other hand in his comrades' direction.

He faltered for a moment; he'd almost forgotten them. Then a broad grin split his face. "I am Death Without Mercy." His fellow soldiers murmured in ill-disguised humor.

Torio's lips parted and invoked a deadly incantation and she swiped it at the youngest among their number. Owain's slight frame buckled. He writhed and hollered as the magic coursed through his body, frying every inch of flesh until his eyes rolled into the back of his head from the agony of it. Torio cut the spell.

Lorne lunged forward, but with his ankles and wrists fastened together like they were, he plummeted forward onto his face. He bellowed unintelligible curses at her as the rage claimed him. The rage he'd never learned to control. His breath stirred violent puffs of dry earth into the air. If he could just _reach_ her, any _part_ of her, he would _crush_ her, _crush_ her with his body and his hate and...

A pitiful moan sounded from a few feet away. Owain had lived.

Torio backpedaled from Lorne's spread-eagled body and had the assassination squad lift him and muscle him back in his place.

Lorne craned his neck to find Owain blistered and bloodied; his skin was raw. But he was alive. For one instant, he successfully blocked out Torio completely.

"Miblir, end him if you like."

The assassin knelt in front of Owain's scorched body and raised his head by what hair remained. He carved a macabre smile across the boy's throat; it was not long before he lay motionless. When Lorne witnessed this, something snapped.

It was the ropes that bound him.

With an inhuman cry, he slammed Torio into the ground, their bodies kicking up a cloud of dust. He pinned her arms to her sides to prevent any more of her foul magics. She shrieked, demanding that the band of assassins aide her.

"Do something, you pissants!"

In unison, the assassins backed away, and assumed the casual stances of spectators viewing a jousting match. Miblir's thin, serpentine chuckle pierced what little coherency Lorne's mind allowed him.

"Tut tut, dear Torio. Pissants, is it? Well then. If we are nothing, then we shall do nothing." They all snickered darkly.

Lorne laughed in triumph, though it mirrored a vicious growl. He cinched her arms between his thighs, and raised his fists high over her head. She screamed in fear.

"I will crush your skull. Let us see how your spells fare _then_." His fists came down, hard.

Something firm collided with the back of his head, as if a giant hand had bull-rushed him. He collapsed forward on top of Torio.

He knew nothing but darkness.


	2. Prisoner of War

_**A/N**__: Eagerly awaited by at least one person. Give me criticism if you think I deserve it. :D_

_I think the chapter gets stronger as she goes along, but that may just be me._

_I'll only add two more notes: 1) I am amused by the ending of this chapter. For anyone who has seen the modern Sleepy Hollow, maybe you'll understand why the ending reminds me of Ichabod Crane. Perhaps I'm odd. 2) I tried so very hard. That is all. :)_

**PRISONER OF WAR**

"_Milord, if I may ask..." Torio lowered her head and body in a supplicating bow._

"_Yes?"_

_She allowed a glance at her master; the furrowed lines of his bare forehead deepened ever so slightly. _Ask quickly_, they read._

"_Forgive me for disturbing you, but I notice that the Neverwinter scum is still...alive."_

_Silver eyes, like glazed marble, stared unblinking and emotionless. "Do you question my reasons, Torio?"_

"_Never, milord! I only wish to understand your plans so that I may better serve you." She smirked down on the obsidian floor. He had taken her natural talent for diplomacy and schooled her well, magnifying it. The rumble emanating from him suggested that he was, of course, not fooled by the display, but willing to overlook it. For now._

"_Go on."_

"_I simply inquire as to the purpose in keeping him alive. It has been over two months, yet still he resists the pain. If he is not disposed of soon, the Archmage may become aware of him, and grow suspicious. And with the war going so poorly I thought—"_

"_The outcome of this war has no bearing on my plans, as I have told you time and again. Victory or defeat, the Hosttower will not fall. Neverwinter has neither the ambition nor the manpower to launch a direct assault here and they never will." He growled the words with vehemence. Torio recoiled slightly._

"_Of course, milord."_

"_As for the greycloak..." Garius folded himself more deeply in his dark robes, stroking his upper lip with a finger. "He is highly resilient to physical pain, but as for his mind..." An unnatural smile crinkled the loose skin of his face. "I have learned much from his thoughts as he sleeps. For all his brute strength, there is a fragile mind underneath, a mind easily enraged and swayed by the words of others. Soon, Torio, I will be able to dull any loyalty he ever harbored Neverwinter until nothing remains but rage. Unconscionable, sharpened rage, without fear of pain or death. And then...then he will become a most valuable tool indeed..." _

* * *

—_...less than two tendays in passing...—_

The room reeked of piss and blood as always. _His_ piss. _His_ blood. And if he listened hard enough, he could still hear the metallic echo of his own screams ringing out against the walls.

Lorne blinked past swollen eyes. He took a breath and heaved his body up against the manacles, grinding his teeth against the pain that fired through every sore limb. Whatever sorcery Garius had placed on his metal bindings, it remained strong as ever. He lowered himself.

He strained his ears, trying to catch _something_, any noise at all. Some insect droned as it teased the rim of his ear. Lorne growled, jerking his head to one side. Why did he fool with this pointless routine? Nothing had changed.

Same windowless chamber. Same four walls. Same ache from the deliberately half healed wounds. Same timeless existence...

Was this the fifth day of his endless torment, or the fiftieth? Did the sun still rise at daybreak? Did it even exist anymore? What he wouldn't give for even the tiniest chink of moonlight, filtering through a hairline crack in the wall...

The Hosttower mages refused to speak on any of this, keeping this knowledge just out of his reach, teasing him with it until he was half raving at them in the blindest rages he'd ever experienced.

Sometimes, he woke from fitful sleep, only to find that the agony had already begun. Their brutality was becoming frenzied, a sure sign that the spell-slingers were growing desperate to break him. They tried to break him with taunting words, with jagged blades and other devices better left forgotten. And they had even brought him the remains of each of his comrades, what they had gleefully called 'negative encouragement'; Miles, Darron, Burke...all of them had given into the pain and died for it.

But Lorne had the advantage: pure, insatiable anger. It flowed in him even now as he laid there, a constant boil in his veins, fueling his survival like oil on flame. Because he _would_ survive. His Captain could only delay a rescue unit for so long. And as much as they disliked each other, protocol was protocol. Lorne grimaced, eager to imagine himself and the unit tearing a path of merciless _slaughter_ throughout the tower; first Garius, then the Claven bitch, and then—

Somewhere nearby, a heavy door thundered on its hinges.

With his anger cooling rapidly, anticipation and dread coiled around one another inside him when he noticed the footfalls. Then, there were voices.

"...still puts a burnin' 'tween the ass cheeks that they managed to pull it off. Who'da thought that, eh?"

"For the last time, _no one_ believed it possible. Now _be silent_."

"Whatever in the Nine Hells for, Miblir? We don't need ta sneak up on the bastard. 'Twas not in the job description."

There was a hissing snarl, and then something crashed into the door behind which Lorne tensed, clenching his jaw.

"Neither was lancing your _worthless_ throat open and using your windpipe as a cigar." A few snickers followed the chilled whisper, but died almost immediately. "Enough. Now make yourself useful, Donovan, and open the door."

"O'course, Mi—"

The free-swinging door burst inward as a man in dark leathers was hurtled bodily through it. But he somehow managed to remain upright on the balls of his feet.

"No call for that kinda treatment, I say."

The heat surged into Lorne's face again, and his heart pounded. The assassin who sidled in after the fool on the floor wore the exact leer that he remembered from that blood-red sunset, from what seemed so long ago. And behind this pale man was the exact band of assassins that had hog-tied Lorne and his comrades like a bunch of cattle.

Miblir appraised the room, then Lorne, his mouth sneering. "Tut tut. You've rather fallen down a deep shithole, eh Death Without Mercy?" His chuckle was serpentine.

"You!" Lorne roared, tossing and wrenching against his manacles. Images, their outlines hazy from pain and the passage of time, assaulted his frenzied mind; the memories of his sergeant and young, blameless Owain; how their throats had gaped open in the failing light...and how he, Lorne, had been as powerless and weak then as he was now.

"_Do_ shut up, devil." The assassin's voice was now drifting up from somewhere beneath him. Lorne opened his mouth, but it clamped shut against his will, as if underneath an invisible vice. "Oh, and cease all that thrashing about, hmm?" His body stilled. No matter which way he tensed his muscles, they stubbornly held their place. "Can't have you ripping your tendons out like limp noodles. Garius might be displeased."

Metallic, ratcheting clicks suddenly grated in Lorne's already aching skull, setting his teeth on edge. With each click, he was hoisted into a vertical position. His head swam from the change.

Miblir passed in front of him, twirling a clawed wand between his fingers, before making a show of returning it to his belt. Lorne closed his eyes, indulging the infuriated anger. At least it dulled the pain.

He felt the band of assassins gather around him, heard them arguing and adjusting unseen contraptions. The table he lay on must have had wheels built in one end, because after a moment, he was moving forward.

He heard nothing, except for the grunting assassins and the shrieking of the table's wheels. He saw nothing. The harsh light that filtered through his closed eyelids was piercing enough as it was. He didn't care to see anymore.

Every now and then, there was a pulsating noise and Lorne's body felt...displaced. It was a sensation he remembered from his short time spent in the Cloaktower, where he and the other men had once waited for their newest marching orders; they had traded bold words with the female mages and fooled with the minor portals there.

Portals. They were transporting him higher in the Hosttower. His ears ached and popped the entire way.

The assassins stopped their grunting after a while. There was a knock, then a heavy wooden creak, and they pushed him forward again. When semi-darkness covered his eyelids and a breath of wind eased over his face, curiosity got the better of him. He opened his eyes.

The room was dimly lit save for a yawning window, its shutters thrown wide. A frigid breeze seeped over and through the tears in his reeking, tattered clothes, and almost into his very skin. It was day. Rays of sunlight glinted in the distance.

So the sun did still shine.

"Have your men bring him forward, Miblir."

An imposing, dark-robed figure eclipsed the only light he had witnessed in countless days.

Garius looked pleased. Extremely pleased. Lorne eyed the window casement behind the mage; was he to be flung from the highest tower window, now that Garius had had his fun with him?

"It is a crisp Nightal morning, Lorne. The 6th of, to be exact." Under Garius' smile, which bordered on the edge of madness, Lorne's mind worked quickly. The 6th of Nightal. Nausea crept into his stomach. He had suffered in the dungeons for almost three months. "I sense you were not cooperative upon retrieval..." Garius murmured a few words under his breath, and made gestures near Lorne's face. The tight pressure in his jaw vanished.

"I am to believe, from what my subordinates tell me, that you still refuse to reconsider. Even after all their...persuasion."

Lorne growled. "I told you, conjurer. I am no backslider, no traitorous worm. You would find more purchase in the Luskan flock than in me."

"You severely underestimate your potential, Lorne. And even more severely_ over_estimate theirs." The mage tossed a chilling glare to the cloister of assassins. He turned to him again, the fever back in those pale eyes. "However, and do correct me if you disagree, but wasted potential seems to chase your footsteps in everything you do."

Lorne seethed, his teeth bared in a jaw-cracking grimace. When he failed to respond, the smile Garius bore turned unbearably smug.

"Yes...wrestled away from the limelight out of either jealousy or fear of your abilities." The mage's face, wrinkled and full of corpse-like pallor, neared Lorne's. Whatever Miblir's wand had done to his limbs, it was still in effect, so his attempt to recoil only gave him a headache. "I understand the most recent was jealousy...the jealousy of a bullheaded Captain intent on seeing his most _capable_ man-at-arms remain nothing but a useless grunt for years. Otherwise, this _capable_ soldier might have excelled or risen in the ranks, and even surpassed his dear Captain."

It felt as if Garius had taken him roughly by his tattered shirt and dangled him through that yawning window, the claws of the elements clutching at his bruise of a body. But the anger was greater than the fear, and so he leveled his throat and spat at Garius.

"How do you know this, conjurer? _Spies_?"

Garius wiped his face with a dark cuff, his expression unchanged. "Come now, Lorne. Even swamp farmers are aware of the infinite uses of the arcane. You are not the ignorant fool your Captain wished for, or indeed, the ignorant fool the entire Greycloak force expected you to be." He made a tsk-tsk noise, his voice now almost cloying. "But you _are_ just as disposable as they anticipated, for here you waste away in the hands of the enemy, _abandoned_ to death, with no one to come to your aid, no one to—"

"THAT is a LIE!" Lorne was dizzy now, and already reeling with doubt and resentment. Both had plagued him in the long, restless nights. Why_ was_ Neverwinter taking its sweet, precious time? Three _months_. And eleven men dead.

They had been sent home in pieces, courtesy of the Luskan trebuchets, or so he had been told. Without recognizable corpses...how were the Neverwinter people expected to know who was dead and who was simply missing? And if the dead and missing counted the same then...how would anyone launch a rescue? How would they know anything about his fate at all?

"Ah, I see the wheels are finally beginning to turn." Garius chuckled. The nausea was churning in Lorne's stomach again. "If the roles were reversed, I'm certain that you would have risked life and limb to brave these towers for your captive soldiers, even for as hopeless a task as storming the Hosttower. After all, you are fiercely loyal to those you serve, are you not?"

Lorne said nothing.

"And yet, it seems that in Neverwinter loyalty really is a one way stream. And the currents are not in your favor, Lorne." Garius paused, his eyes acute. "...I assume that it would be of interest for you to know...that the war is won."

Lorne's voice was hoarse. "What?"

"Yes. Quite the remarkable twist of events. Your former Lady Aribeth conceded her freedom at Castle Never's gates and Maugrim Korothir was slain less than five days past, both courtesy of a small band led by a half-elven recruit. Korothir's reptilian Patroness also lies dead, along with her entire retinue of warrior-priests and mages. Whatever boon she bestowed upon the Luskan forces expired upon her death. Neverwinter stands as the victor, in effect since moondark today."

Greycloaks were not privy to this kind of intelligence. Lorne had never even heard of any 'reptilian' foe. He felt another, sharper jab of bitterness.

But Garius didn't appear eager to share anymore. The flesh around his brows, or where brows should have been, raised high on his forehead.

"As I understand Neverwinter's wartime codes, the victor has the right to occupy the defeated territory and free any prisoners of war, if any. However..." He motioned to the assassins. "Undo his bindings."

Miblir, Donovan, and the others surrounded Lorne and began detaching his metal coils. It took them a while; his ankles, thighs, middle, chest, forearms and wrists were all bound.

"Bring him to the window, so that he can see..."

The assassins lugged him away from the table, using their arms and shoulders to brace the load of his paralyzed body like he was an invalid. They sounded out of breath and pissed beyond belief.

"Look far, Lorne."

A biting breeze issued through the window, forcing his aching eyes open.

The Mirar's waters lapped against the spit of land that crossed Luskan's harbor. The city was a victim of its own filth; a dull haze hovered over buildings and sea alike, choking everything. He could barely make out the land far into the distance. From what he could tell, it was in the middle of a dry winter, plains barren and littered with trees twisted by the backward weather.

"Not quite far enough." Garius whispered more foreign words. He swept his hand in front of Lorne's vision, and suddenly the distant shadow of Mount Hotenow rippled, once, then twice, then again until the mountain stood true to life before him, as if he were gazing through a sea captain's spyglass. Benign steam flowed from its summit and from the hot springs dotted around its cone.

And there, just a ways down from the Mount's peak, in a hollowed outcropping: a volley of magical helixes intertwined in every hue imaginable; the celebratory display that the Cloaktower had mustered during every major victory in the war, for the city's viewing pleasure. The more triumphant the victory, the more colorful the display. Now vibrant and pulsating, the countless tendrils of light were more explosive than he had ever seen.

"Now, look to the Road."

He was numb right down to his bones as the assassins' fingers dug into his biceps, rotating him southward.

The landscape rippled as before. Neverwinter troops pooled together at an easy pace along the High Road, the injured or dead jostling around on carts not far behind. Retreating backs. Withdrawal. Not an approaching party in sight.

It finally hit home. He had never mattered to them, had he? Not in the least. All the work, all the years. Wasted.

_Wasted potential...a useless grunt...just as disposable as they anticipated...abandoned to death..._

Against his will, Lorne's body pitched forward unexpectedly, racked by the most anguished despair of his life. The fingers in his arms tightened. He wished they would just leave him be, wished they would let him crack his skull on the obsidian floor or topple through the window.

His eyes watered, hot and angry, unintelligible nonsense spewing faintly from between his gritted teeth. At last, Garius spoke. He was quiet, but accusing.

"Now you see that even in warfare, Neverwinter is a city like any other. Did you actually believe that your vainglorious _Lord_ would risk _additional_ men and women, all for you?" He had moved closer. "A compromised unit is nothing. The individual soldier is nothing. The scores of the missing and the dead _are nothing_. They are necessities. Means to one end. Victory, Lorne. And in war, victory is _everything_."

Lorne couldn't remember hearing the next words, but he felt them. The surge of control rushed through his body once again. The assassins took this as their cue to break contact with their heavy load, and he crumpled in on himself. His limbs were as weak as an infant's, buckling from disuse and abuse and the beginnings of grief. He could only kneel, half-way on all fours.

Everything hurt. Everything, everywhere.

"Let me make something clear." Garius was knelt near him, the shroud of those dark robes shadowing the already black floor beneath his pained face. A heavy arm brushed his shoulders, almost confidingly. "You are dead to the world you knew, and they are dead to you. I am giving you an opportunity, Lorne Starling. An opportunity not only for renewed purpose, but for _vengeance_. Gratification, appreciation, _satisfaction_. Magnified tenfold in light of anything Neverwinter could provide. All you need do, is choose..."

The chill air made itself known again. Lorne didn't answer. He couldn't, not when his mind was twisted into so many burning knots.

Garius rose, and Lorne felt a hint of the mage's true fury bear down on his back. "Very well. Perish in silence." A pause. "Escort him back to the chamber, Miblir. Do as you wish with him, he is of no use to me."

Lorne heard the slow, measured footfalls, and the caress of robes on stone. He was to be killed. Useless and disposable as always. Those burning knots twisted tighter, more fevered, more desperate. They had to be severed, had to be ripped from their seams, because what were _they_ to him anymore?

"I yield." His throat clamped over the words, and he choked. He finally tasted the bitter salt of his tears on his tongue.

"...Say again?"

Grasping the window casement, Lorne hauled himself from the floor. He shoved one of the assassins that had thought it his duty to aide his master's captive.

"Get away from me, worm, or I will fling you through the window myself." He growled, turning to face Garius, and leaning against the wall. The conjurer's eyebrows were riding high again, and he wore a bemused expression.

"If I am dead like...like you say...then I am a ghost in this world...I am nothing...with nothing to lose anymore." Lorne drew a ragged breath. His ears were ringing, darkness intruding at the corners of his vision. "I yield, Garius. I...yield."

The urge to witness the mage's reaction was humbled by three-month long exhaustion.

With a sickening jerk, Lorne's knees doubled under their burden, and the ever-nearing obsidian floor lured him into darkness once more.


End file.
